Hello!! A quick recap of our spring break vacation to Canada! We had a great time we stayed at the Skyline Hotel & Waterpark, the kids loved the Waterpark we spent two whole days at the water park they enjoyed the wave pool and water slides. At night there is plenty to do many shops and entertainment around. It’s a fithteen walk from Niagara Falls, plenty of shops and dining close. I would definitely recommend Fallsview Restaurant great view of then Falls. We took a ride on the Sky Wheel the kids loved it great views of surroundings we loved looking at the mini golf with dinosaurs around, also looking at Niagara Falls at night is pretty cool they are different color lights. We spent half a day in Toronto walking by the lake, we had dinner at Copacabana Brazilian Steakhouse very very good but pricey it’s about $50 per person but it’s buffet style and all the different types of meats you want to try. Hope you enjoyed my quick recap of our spring break 2019 vacation. Check out some of the pictures 📸⬇️

My Spring break Vacation is coming this week we are heading to Canada 🇨🇦!! We are super excited about this trip my husband and I have never been and can’t wait to share this with you all! One thing I am not super excited about is we are driving 🚙 it will be about a 9 hour drive for us and with three kids we are hoping we don’t end up regretting it 😂 we plan on driving all night so they hopefully sleep and we won’t have to stop a lot on the way. We never planned for a vacation to Canada we were planning on a weekend at a local Waterpark with our kids, but browsing on Groupon.com I found an awesome deal and had to go for it! We will be spending four nights at a hotel & Waterpark so of course the kids are super excited!! Look for a blog this coming week for photos on our trip!! I will not post anything Wednesday, so look for a post on Saturday so keep an eye for my family vacation Review!!

Ooh here we go again another crazy morning full of chaos and melt downs, my morning usually start at 6:30 a.m trying to get my face washed, my teeth clean and maybe some type of exercise before my three little monkeys wake up. I used get up at the same time the kids woke up and found that was a bit nuts because I felt so rushed and never had time to do anything for myself. My therapist suggested I try to wake at least a half hour before my kids to do what I need to do she said this will help you have a smoother morning well it’s defiantly not a smooth morning every morning but, it does help especially when I get time to do some yoga or get a 15 minute walk on the tread mill. If I can get my make up done and make my bed before the kids wake up its an accomplishment and it feels good o the little things. By 7 a.m one of the kids is usually up and if not it gives me a bit more time at least to get my coffee ready and maybe watch a bit of T.V which I don’t do much of anymore well at least not grown up shows its all about cartoons or kids movies ask me how many times i have watched Incredibles 2 or Boss Baby about a thousand times a week 😆, I think I know every word to these movies by now and Frozen of course never gets old came out when my oldest was 3 years old and now my youngest who is 2 years old loves it especially Olaf.

By 7:30 all three of my kids are usually up on some days my little one will sleep in closer to 8 a.m, so here it goes breakfast time o how I dread to ask what they want, my kids don’t really care for just cereal or yogurt in the morning they want pancakes, French toast, toast, eggs, bacon, and fruit. I do love that they like a nice hearty breakfast but some days i wish they would just take a bowl of cereal and make it a morning. I have learned not to always give them a choice so Iwill tell them today we are having toast, fruit and cottage cheese for example instead of letting pick all the time.

Breakfast is never breakfast without a spill or somebody complaining about something so important like I don’t like the color of the cup my milk is in or why does she have more then me or i don’t like this when clearly two days ago you gave them the same thing and they ate it with no problem. I have tried to have a morning routine I would like for them to get up brush teeth and get dressed before heading downstairs for breakfast but apparently this sooooo hard to do everyday. It works on some days but on others it just depends on who is in what mood. I can probably go on and on about our mornings I would love to hear about your mornings and what works for you family

Hello, ever wonder what to do with the kiddos for fun wether it’s just to spend time together as a family, play date with friends or a birthday party!! Well I found an awesome place in town and I am so glad I did The Painting 🎨 Camp, about a month ago my daughter was invited to a friends birthday 🎂 🎁 party at the Painting Camp. She fell in love with this place it’s full of fun figures, princess characters, unicorns my daughter favorite right now and mugs, jewelry and boxes etc……, the list can go on forever! The place is super welcoming and the staff very helpful.Jin Duan the owner of the The Painting Camp opened in 2018 and has been open for seven months she is a Business Major, and took the leap in opening her own business. She loves painting and her inspiration was “Color me Mine” the pottery shop, that she absolutely loves. Jin felt she wanted a similar business that was at a more accessible price point for families to be able to afford, to bring there children to a place they could be inpired and creative that wouldn’t break there budget. It’s a great place to spend an afternoon painting not only for families with children but great for a girls night out with friends. Jin is also a mother to beautiful baby girl who is eight months oldshe is looking forward to seeing her daughter grow as well as her business. Jin looks forward to the day her daughter can come and start painting and making her own memories at her mothers business. The Painting 🎨 Camp is located in Bolingbrook, Illinois minutes from the Promenade Mall.

If your home is anything like mine I am sure you will be able to relate, the on going war between you and your children about time one the screen. The problem now isn’t what we lived as children growing up in the early 90s seems like light years away when it comes to technology. In my home there were six people my parents and the four of us kids there where two TVs , One land line with two phones and a Radio to play CDs/Cassette this was our technology. When my husband and I talk to our children about this they look at us like if we were dinosaurs and it was millions of years back. My son said to me Omg mommy no internet what did you do all day, my daughter has said she is thankful she wasn’t born in the other century which makes me feels super old. My husband and I try to talk about the way we grew up as often as we can, we explain to them how we spent most of our childhood outdoors playing hide and seek, ding dong ditch lol, jumping rope, riding bikes or just enjoying a snack with our friends in our back yard.

When it comes to scheduling screen time it sounds ideal to have set days they can use it, but now we run into this problem both of our TVs in our home are Smart so this means they can still watch the dumb videos on YouTube sorry if I offended anyone but some of these videos have no point to them and are not even close to being educational. So when we say no tablet, computer, no using our phones (our kids don’t have cells yet hope to keep this way for a while) we also have to add no YouTube on the Tv, luckily I have the YouTube linked to my cell so I can see when there watching and the history and, what they have watched in the past. Oh! and now I have to add no Nintendo Switch since they got this for Christmas but honestly I would rather them play a game on the switch for 30 minutes then spend 30 minutes watching a video that has no meaning or educational background. At least with he switch they get up and move my daughter has the Just Dance, and it motivates you to exercise a bit.

So the question is how do you control all these devices the only way we have found works for our family is letting them know they may only use tablets, cells, and computers only every other day and Sunday is no screen day except tv since this is the day we may get together to play on the switch or watch a good movie as a family. The every other day thing actually does work and they can’t use anything until after dinner and homework is done. If they mis behaving or something goes on in school that we feel is a problem we will take away the screen time anywhere from 2-5 days, we let them know screen time is a privilege if you mis behaving at home or school there will be a consequence.This has worked for our family I have consider making a chart so the kiddos can have a visual and so my little 2 year old can understand even though he doesn’t really care for screen time right now he would rather destroy my house or write on walls. I do have to add that I wish more apps added screen time limits like YouTube kids I do like that I get to chose how long my child can watch and the screen will just turn off on its own. So if any of you who read this make apps for children especially ages 2-12 years please add a timer for parents to adjust. Would love to here what works for your family!

Welcome! To part 2of my potty training tips, First I will share with you that my baby boy is officially in big boy undies. It took me a good solid month to make it happen I know he would have learned quicker I just wanted to take my time and not rush into it since this can back fire I have seen it happen before with my students when I was a two year old teacher kids would get potty trained super fast and then for some reason all of sudden they didn’t want undies anymore. I started by shopping for pull ups which I don’t love but help when you’d can’t just take off work to potty train your child he was so happy when he say the Cars and Mickey Mouse pull-ups, then we took out our big boy potty we put one in our basement since we have no bathroom we put the other in our bathroom upstairs and in our half bath we put a toddler seat for the toilets which are awesome the take up no room. After all this a couple days went by and then I bought him Elmo big BOY undies .Well every child is different in my case I took my time because I wasn’t in any kind of rush he was only 2 years and 4 months when I started to potty train him, my goal was always to potty train him before Spring and I did it !! I just didn’t want to go another summer caring diapers & baby wipes all the time. He had been showing interest since around Christmas time 2018 and I just would sit him when he asked or showed interest I just didn’t want to do it during the Holidays, today is March 24, 2019 and he has been in BIG boy undies for two whole weeks!! So I did it right before Spring I am so proud of my mommy skills right now lol. I have to thank his awesome two year old teachers who made this work too, they are awesome for all they do.

My biggest tip to you as a Teacher and Mom is to whatever or whenever you decided to potty train your child stick to it!! Children know very well when they aren’t following a set routine and for potty training they need to have an idea. My son knew that once he woke up in the morning he had to go sit on the potty first. Then he got into the routine potty when he woke up and before we walked out the door in the morning. Once we arrived to School he would wash hands and his teachers would have him try again. During his day at School they would have him go sit on the potty even if he didn’t go, this to will prevent many accidents if you get into the habit of sending your child to to potty every 15 minutes or so as long it was consistent. At home we would sing the ABC song while he sat or whatever song he wanted to sing sometime it was twinkle twinkle little star. This time around as a mom was pretty easy I didn’t have to do much with him. With my first my daughter we had a goody bucket with things from the dollar store like bubbles, stickers, crayons, and playdough and with my middle son I did a potty chart with stickers and would give him an M&Ms sometimes. Ofcourse every child is different so I would do something that would interests your child, there also plenty of potty training books you can read to them. Below I will leave my Pinterest link to my Potty Training board. I hope you enjoyed my potty training !!!!